


A New Life

by pagingevilspawn



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: A New Life, F/M, Jo-centric fic, Running Away, has pretty much no jolex in it, paul stadler is an asshole who should burn in hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:09:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28960008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagingevilspawn/pseuds/pagingevilspawn
Summary: running, she'd done it all her life, but now she knew, she needed to run.or...where brooke becomes jo
Relationships: Alex Karev/Jo Wilson
Kudos: 14





	A New Life

**Author's Note:**

> decided to start posting my one shot's on here as well! 
> 
> these co-align with my tumblr and wattpad (which you can follow me @pagingevilspawn), so if you've seen these already, thats why.

**_TW// domestic violence/abuse, abortion_ **

She could hear the sound of her alarm clock beeping loudly, signaling her to wake up and face yet another day. She doesn't feel anything quite yet, her sense of where she was at in the world was still in a dream state. Oh, what a great dream she was having. She was at a hospital, a big- no- _huge_ one. She was in the middle of her surgery- an appendectomy she assumed- when she looked up, catching the eyes of someone, someone she couldn't quite put a name to, but she knew that this person was smiling. And that smile? Oh, she really liked that smile, even though she couldn't remember it, nor had she ever seen it before.

She was really liking her dream.

She finally decides that it was time to open her eyes, but she couldn't.

Well, one of them at least.

It's then she feels it.

The _pain_.

The uncontrollable _ba bump ba bump_ she feels throbbing behind her right eye. The pain was cursing through her, her blood, her systems. She felt it _everywhere._

It was then she realizes that the pain was coming from another source as well. Her back.

_Kick_

_Kick_

_Kick_

She feels the tip of his expensive shoes barrel into her spine again and again as she cries out, begging him to stop.

"Paul please!" she pleads, trying to scramble her way into a sitting position before her husband can do any more damage.

But she struggles, because she forgot about the fracture of her right wrist. "Shit" she hisses out, a whole new round of pain surging threw her body from putting pressure on that one limb.

It was then that Paul stopped, towering over her broken figure, grabbing both of her wrists and pinning them above her head, so she had no way to escape his hold. "You know damn well what you did Brooke." he says venomously, little traces of spit flying onto her face.

He looks at her, his gaze so full of pure hatred and jealously. His eyes scan over her broken body. Bruises covering her stomach and back, some on the inside of her thighs. The marks make him feel a sense of pride. _He was winning_.

Brooke shakes her head, tears coming down her cheeks so quickly she wasn't sure is she would ever be able to get them to stop. "N-no I don't. Im sorry Paul. I-im sorry f-for whatever I did." she stutters out, choking on her own words as she feels the lump in her throat grow more and more form trying to keep her sobs at bay.

"You lying whore!" he exclaims, roughly pulling her wrists from the headboard and pushing her to the ground, causing her to let out another cry of pain as she lands on the fresh bruises on her back.

The woman whimpers, trying to crawl into the corner of the room, bringing her knees up to her chest and putting her head between them, hoping that this was just nightmare.

She hoped that the past three years were just a nightmare, and she had just yet to wake up.

But to no luck, it wasn't. It was reality. The cruel, cruel reality that she lived in.

"Who the hell is emailing you Brooke? Huh! Who the fuck is Brody?" he sneers at her, referring to the email he saw on her computer earlier that morning,

_Oh no_ , she thinks to herself. How could she be so stupid? How could she forget to delete the email?

Brooke swallows, trying to get her breathing under control. Paul didn't like it when she stuttered. He said it made her sound too much like a little girl. "H-he is a new guy from work. He wanted to get to know everybody better, so he sent out some emails." she tells him, speaking to him the truth.

A new guy named Brody started at the Crab Shack a few days ago and was super friendly. He was a few years younger, having just turned twenty-one and was trying to get to know his fellow co-workers better. She liked him, he was nice and didn't ask her questions when she asked if he could take a few of her tables the previous day.

But she knew why she couldn't wait on those tables. It was because they were full of men. Men a few years older than her. And if Paul were to walk in on her after a long shift of his and see her taking these guys' orders, being friendly, she knew it wouldn't be pretty.

Her husband scoffs at her, looking at her like she was a piece of trash on the side of the road. "Is that so Brooke? Are you sure it wasn't just _you_ he's trying to get to know?" he leans in closer to her face, watching with a victorious glint in his eyes as he sees her try to form he thoughts.

"Y-yes." she squeaks out. "H-he's nice. He's just trying to make friends Paul." she explains.

She watches as a new flame of anger appears in his orbs, making her curse to herself once more. 

_Shit, Brooke, you stupid idiot._

"Oh yeah? Is he nice Brooke?" he asks harshly, picking her up off the floor and throwing her onto their bed, the grey comforter bouncing up and down as she does too.

She couldn't believe that there was a time when hearing her name roll off his tongue was a peacefully feeling. Like everything way okay when he said her name. Now, it was like someone lured ice cold water every time he spoke the six letter word.

"Is he so nice you want to screw him? Huh Brooke? Do you want to screw Brody?" he picks her up from the bed and pushes her into a wall, knocking the wind out of her.

"N-no!" she yells out, squeezes her eyes shut as she crosses her arms over her body.

_O_ _ver her stomach._

Her stomach, which held her seven week old fetus. She didn't know how her baby was still alive at this point. She truly didn't know. She had somehow been able to avoid being hit in the abdomen for the past two months, since Paul seemed to enjoy kicking her in the back more recently.

"Good Brooke, because you are mine. You hear me?" he asks, physically dragging her into the living room. "Mine." he hisses at her, covering her face in his disgusting spit.

_Please let me wake up. Please let me wake up._

"You owe everything to me Brooke!" he yells, practically throwing her across the room because of how harshly he shoved her. The woman crashes back onto the floor, falling into a coffee table.

_Crack_.

Her ribs.

"Look at what you've done now!" he roars, referring to the books and papers now spread out all over the floor of the room. He walks over to her again, grabbing her waist, ignoring how she winces at his harsh movements, "This house you live in? You owe it to me."

He traces the nightgown she had on. It was what he wanted her to always wear to bed. He wanted her to 'look like a woman and not like a homeless person'. The lace of the short, skimpy nightgown wasn't something she would prefer to sleep in, but she wore it anyways because he wanted her to. He didn't want to have to remove much when he wanted to have sex with her. "The clothes you wear? The nice, expensive clothes? You know why you have them?" he asks, tracing the thin lace with his long fingers.

"Me, Brooke." he pulls his fingers away, going to her hair and combing his hand through it. "And your food? Me. Your bills? Me. Everything you have is because of _me_. Don't you forget that Brooke." he stands up and shoves her to the ground, leaving her in a ball of her own pain, crying her silent tears.

Today. Today was the day she would make a change.

She waits until Paul is gone for yet another long shift at the hospital. She gets in the car, making sure to keep track of exactly how many gallons were in it. She would make sure to fill up to that amount before Paul got home. Otherwise he would know.

She drives to the hospital fifty-five minuets from their house, since the one closer is where he worked at. She cries as the OB performs her abortion, knowing that she made the right move when she schedule the appointment two weeks ago. No matter how much she had already loved this baby she knew it couldn't be born. She couldn't raise a child in a home where the father hit their mother, and potentially the children too.

She drives again. She fills out the documents. She does everything she needs to do based on a google search, making sure to clear her history. She couldn't risk him finding out. He couldn't. This was her chance. Her one chance to make it all stop.

* * *

It was time.Exactly one week after her most recent attack she knew. She knew it was time.

She waits until he leaves for work again that morning, exactly six-thirty on the dot. No later, no earlier. Always six-thirty.

She waits an extra ten minutes, making sure he wouldn't come back. He _couldn't_ come back, not now.

It's then she packs her bags, two suitcases full of her clothes and a few of her shoes. She grabs all her necessities, her toothbrush, her hairbrush, her favorite blanket, her books. She grabs everything, shoving it into her two suitcases and large duffel bag. She goes to the kitchen and grabs some food, putting them into a backpack she found on the bottom of the hall closet.

She takes everything. She finds some his credit cards and takes those, along with the extra couple hundred dollar bills he has lying around in his drawers. She grabs her Bubby, the little tool that helped give her warm meals in her car.

_If it weren't for me you would still be living in your car Brooke. That's why you don't buy the wrong milk. You owe it to me._

She shakes off his voice in her head, shoving Bubby into her bag. She didn't know why she was packing everything, but she supposed it was because she didn't know how much she would have when she got to her new home, so why not bring as much as she could and save valuable money.

She's about to grab her phone when she decides not to. She was going to leave it. He could have it tracked. Brooke puts the phone back down to the nightstand, stopping when she sees a photo. 

A photo of them. Of them when they were happy. Of them before they were married. Before the beatings. Before everything. In that photo they look happy. So happy. He's looking at her like she's a pot of gold and she's smiling so wide it looks like she just found a real life unicorn.

It makes her heart hurt.

_Maybe it will get better. Maybe it will stop. Maybe if you tell him, about the baby he won't do it anymore. Maybe he'll love you again._

_No._

She stops the thoughts. There was nothing she could do. She used to think it would get better. Once she knew what set him off, what he didn't like. Once she knew that, it would be okay. He would have no reason to get angry at her. No reason to hit her.

_No._

He wasn't going to change. No matter how much she prayed to the gods she didn't believe in, she knew. It was never going to go back to the way it was.

He said he loved her. He said the only reason he got jealous of other guys was that he loved her too much he didn't want to lose her. He said that he hit her because he loved her so much, but sometimes she just made him so mad. He just _needed_ to hit her, to let her know why it was her fault.

_No._

Today was the day. She grabbed her bags, throwing up her hair in a high, messy, ponytail as she pulls her suitcases through the front door, locking it behind her.

That day when Paul got home he would call out for his wife, only to see that she wasn't there. He would go into their room, only to see that all of her things seemed to have vanished into thin air, the only thing left being her phone, placed neatly on her freshly plumped pillow.

He would check his bank account, only to see that over $3,000 had been taken out of it total. He would be furious, throwing everything glass in the large house at the wall, knowing that his reputation would now be down the drain.

But her?

Oh no, she had never felt more _free_.

She was on a bus, a bus that would take her to her new home.

_Seattle._

Oh Seattle, where she got accepted into Seattle Grace Mercy West's surgical intern program, one of the best in the United States. This was her new life. Her fresh start. A new beginning.

She was a few hours into her trip when she feels a presence near her. A frail old lady with a kind smile looks down on her. "Is this seat taken?" she asks.

The woman shakes her head no, signaling that the old woman could sit. The grey haired woman speaks up a few moments later. "I'm Iris, what's your name young lady?"

The young brunette grins brightly, a breath escaping through her lips.

**_"Josephine. Josephine Wilson."_ **


End file.
